Too awful to check: CIA passed on bin Laden hit in 1999?

posted at 12:01 pm on August 29, 2012 by Ed Morrissey

According to a new book released this summer from a former member of Polish intelligence and reported by McClatchy today, an anti-Taliban guerilla group offered the CIA a perfect opportunity to end the threat of al-Qaeda’s inspirational leader, Osama bin Laden, in 1999 — after the Khobar Towers attack in 1996 that killed 19 Air Force personnel, and after the twin embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 that killed 12 Americans and more than 200 people overall. All the CIA had to do was green-light an assassination mission by the group run by Ahmed Shah Massoud, as they already had the route and locations bin Laden planned to use in his journey to Kandahar, and assure them that the group would get the $5 million reward if they succeeded. The CIA flat-out refused, citing existing American law, and said that either OBL was to be captured alive or not at all, according to the intelligence officer involved in the negotiations:

“They gave us the exact location of the houses where bin Laden would be staying in Kandahar, the route he would be taking between his living quarters, his meeting place, and what kind of transportation he would be using,” Makowski told McClatchy in a recent interview, referring to the city in southern Afghanistan that was the Taliban’s seat of power. The Afghans planned to use car bombs to kill the Saudi-born leader of al Qaida.

But on Oct. 14, 1999, a CIA officer whom Makowski identified as “Jim” flew to Warsaw with a response. “I would like everyone here to be absolutely clear on one thing: We do not have a license to kill,” “Jim” told top officials at the headquarters of Polish intelligence. Makowski, at the time a businessman, said he was at the meeting.

“We have to capture bin Laden safe and sound so that he can stand trial and be sentenced legally,” Makowski quotes the officer as saying. “Any other solution is out of the question. CIA operates within the American legal order.”

According to Makowski, the intelligence proved accurate: Bin Laden arrived in Kandahar as planned and stayed in the house as had been predicted. Could the Afghans have killed him? “I have no doubt,” he said.

As if that were not bad enough, Makowski’s sources in Polish intelligence say that they already had intelligence that bin Laden planned to attack US Navy warships, and had warned the CIA about the plans. A year later, bin Laden and al-Qaeda would successfully conduct a terrorist attack on the USS Cole in Aden, killing 17 American sailors. They even knew who the commander of the mission would be. The CIA dismissed the intel:

“Beginning in 1999, for almost a year, we started giving information that bin Laden had made a decision to prepare an operation to attack U.S. warships in the Gulf,” Makowski told McClatchy.

“We started supplying details. There was a 27-person team, the command was divided and it was based in Dubai. We told them who its leader was, his passport number, his Dubai identity card and that they were preparing to attack a U.S. warship,” he said.

At first the CIA asked for more information. But after seven or eight months of reporting, the agency wrote back that the information is interesting “but they think such an attack is impossible,” Makowski said. Three months later, the Cole was attacked as it was in port in Yemen.

The book also claims that the CIA and the Clinton administration sided with the Taliban over Massoud’s opposition in 1996, when the Taliban took Kabul and seized power. That would make some sense, as the US at the time wanted to strengthen ties with Pakistan, which actively backed the Pashtun Taliban in Afghanistan over its tribal rivals. In the pre-existing narrative, most recently reinforced by the film Charlie Wilson’s War, the rise of the Taliban has been depicted as a malignant side effect of American intervention against the Soviet Union and then neglect after the collapse of the communist empire. But that’s at least a six-year span between one and the other, as long as significant American intervention, a period glossed over by the film.

Until now, we presumed that the only opportunities we had to get bin Laden was in 1996 when he moved AQ to Afghanistan and in a botched missile attack later in 1998 — a year previous to this opportunity. Why not let Massoud kill bin Laden after an obvious attempt to kill rather than detain the terrorist leader? That’s a question that needs to be answered, one which the vaunted 9/11 Commission never knew existed.

That’s not the only Osama bin Laden issue in the news today, either. According to a new book written by one of the commandos on the raid that killed the al-Qaeda leader, bin Laden had already been shot when they reached him. Not only did OBL not stand and fight, his weapons were empty:

“We were less than five steps from getting to the top when I heard suppressed shots. BOP. BOP,” writes Owen. “I couldn’t tell from my position if the rounds hit the target or not. The man disappeared into the dark room.”

Team members took their time entering the room, where they saw the women wailing over Bin Laden, who wore a white sleeveless T-shirt, loose tan pants and a tan tunic, according to the book.

Despite numerous reports that bin Laden had a weapon and resisted when Navy SEALs entered the room, he was unarmed, writes Owen. He had been fatally wounded before they had entered the room. …

The shots fired inside the room appear to contradict the mission they were given. During a meeting with top commanders, a lawyer from either the Pentagon or the White House “made it clear that this wasn’t an assassination,” writes Owen, who recounted the instructions: “I am not going to tell you how to do your job. What we’re saying is if he does not pose a threat, you will detain him.”

Searching bin Laden’s neatly organized room, Owen found two guns -– an AK-47 and a Makarov pistol -– with empty chambers. “He hadn’t even prepared a defense. He had no intention of fighting. He asked his followers for decades to wear suicide vests or fly planes into buildings, but didn’t even pick up his weapon. In all of my deployments, we routinely saw this phenomenon. The higher up the food chain the targeted individual was, the bigger a pussy he was.”

The initial reports of a firefight were similarly fanciful, Owen writes. There was no firefight at the gate, and according to the account in the book, the only firefight was between bin Laden and whoever killed him before the commandos reached his room — either himself or presumably one of his wives. The book also relates the predictions of the raid’s participants that Barack Obama would try to make the raid all about himself. But at least they respected Obama for giving them the green light; as for Joe Biden, well …

After listening to Obama’s speech and enduring Biden’s “lame jokes that no one got (He seemed like a nice guy, but he reminded me of someone’s drunken uncle at Christmas dinner)” the president invited the team to return to his residence later for a beer.

But Owen writes a few weeks later: “We never got the call to have a beer at the White House.” Joking with a fellow SEAL, “Hey, did you ever hear anything about that beer?” Walt cracks: “ You believed that shit. I bet you voted for change too, sucker.”

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“We were less than five steps from getting to the top when I heard suppressed shots. BOP. BOP,” writes Owen. “I couldn’t tell from my position if the rounds hit the target or not. The man disappeared into the dark room.”

I read that to mean that the book author was #2 man and the shots were fired by his #1 man on the stairs. The lead SEAL fired the requisite rounds, then bin laden died in the room. By the time the team reached him, he of course was dead and they fired more rounds to make it so.

“The higher up the food chain the targeted individual was, the bigger a pussy he was.”

Is that any way to talk about The Commie?

;O)

When there is no green light on a savage who not only targeted and killed Americans; but, actually did so by attacking 2 American embassies – then you have an accurate reflection of exactly what is birthed when cowardice and bureaucracy have carnal knowledge –

“We were less than five steps from getting to the top when I heard suppressed shots. BOP. BOP,” writes Owen. “I couldn’t tell from my position if the rounds hit the target or not. The man disappeared into the dark room.”

“We started supplying details. There was a 27-person team, the command was divided and it was based in Dubai. We told them who its leader was, his passport number, his Dubai identity card and that they were preparing to attack a U.S. warship,” he said.

This is so similar to how Hillary’s State Department acted when the panty-bomber’s own dad told the American Embassy about his jihadi son, and requested them to not give him a visa to USA.

This isn’t news. UBL was at the top of the US watch list since long before 1993, because of his coordination efforts with multiple terrorist groups and nations. Any attack against Americans was presumed to involve his planning, financing, or influence, but until a solid link could be made to a real attack, there was no chance of a hit being ordered on him. There was a “soft” order on him after the first WTC attack. That Clinton multiple times refused to green light live opportunities remains a disgrace.

I blame Ross Perot. If Clinton’s people hadn’t been in charge when we had the chance to terminate bin Laden, those 3,000 people would have been alive after 9/11. Hey, if that kind of argument can work for Paul…

“He hadn’t even prepared a defense. He had no intention of fighting. He asked his followers for decades to wear suicide vests or fly planes into buildings, but didn’t even pick up his weapon. In all of my deployments, we routinely saw this phenomenon. The higher up the food chain the targeted individual was, the bigger a pussy he was.”

I’ve always thought this about OBL. He always convinced people to kill themselves for Allah but he hid in caves. Reminds me of when our guys found Saddam in the “spider hole”. “I surrender, I surrender”. This after convincing everyone else (including his decrepit sons) to die for the cause.

Is it the intent of the author to suggest the shooting was done contrary to given instructions? Is this excerpted by McClatchy to make it seem that way?

It would seem to me that a captured OBL would have been thousand times more valuable than a dead one. It would also seem politically inconvenient to have to house -and interrogate- a living bin Laden. No one in the aftermath seemed to suggest any displeasure to OBL’s death. Celebratory stories were everywhere. I don’t remember anyone talking about any measure of disappointment from Carney or others as to the result of the mission. So it would seem -simply on those metrics- that capture wasn’t a high priority.

And yet it’s an important element that speaks to the priorities of the administration, and needs clarification.

This is so similar to how Hillary’s State Department acted when the panty-bomber’s own dad told the American Embassy about his jihadi son, and requested them to not give him a visa to USA.

burrata on August 29, 2012 at 12:16 PM

Bingo.

Sidebar: Why do Democrat Presidents hate our embassies so much? It’s my understanding that, under international law, they constitute American soil. So, both Carter and Clinton failed to respond to direct attacks upon American soil.

“He hadn’t even prepared a defense. He had no intention of fighting. He asked his followers for decades to wear suicide vests or fly planes into buildings, but didn’t even pick up his weapon. In all of my deployments, we routinely saw this phenomenon. The higher up the food chain the targeted individual was, the bigger a pu$$y he was.”

I’ve always thought this about OBL. He convinced others to kill themselves for Allah yet he hid in caves. Reminds me of when our guys found Saddam Hussein in the “spider hole”. “I surrender, I surrender”. This after convincing everyone else (including his decrepit sons) to die for him.

I’ve always thought this about OBL. He convinced others to kill themselves for Allah yet he hid in caves. Reminds me of when our guys found Saddam Hussein in the “spider hole”. “I surrender, I surrender”. This after convincing everyone else (including his decrepit sons) to die for him.

Bitter Clinger on August 29, 2012 at 12:23 PM

It is very like the Paleostinian ‘leaders’. They will happily pay the peasants to strap bombs to their kids but they get their own kids the hell out of Dodge – at least to Jordan or Europe, where they attend good schools and live lives as perfectly normal affluent young arabs.

Don Rumsfeld said you shouldn’t call terrorists cowards as they are willing to exchange their life for yours. But the terrorist leaders tend to be absolute cowards.

Saddam Hussein did the same thing. He was a coward to the bitter end. Dragged out of a spider hole, a loaded pistol (.22 IIRC) nearby, unfired. These types ride upon their egos, personas and false narratives. Most of these grandiose men are thumb suckers and only act out their small lives through the destruction of others. Bin Laden, and those jihadbots like him, are merely acknowledging the fact that they, and their beliefs, are deeply flawed and wrong. Quite a psychological pathology and worldview, IMO.

There was no firefight at the gate, and according to the account in the book, the only firefight was between bin Laden and whoever killed him before the commandos reached his room — either himself or presumably one of his wives.

Ed, this seems to imply that OBL either committed suicide or was killed perhaps by one of his wives. In other accounts of this book and the raid, it’s clear that the author was behind his point man, going up the stairs, when OBL came out, and it was then the author heard the sound of suppressed gunfire followed by OBL disappearing into the room.

I don’t think he ever suggested that the gunfire came from inside the room, but rather that it came from his point man or perhaps another team member.

Actually, this story isn’t really new, and jibes closely to what Steve Coll described in “Ghost Wars.” This of course led to the great quote of from a U.S. official summarizing the Northern Alliance’s reaction: “Oh, okay, you want us to capture him. right. You crazy with guys!” See also Benjamin Runkle’s “Wanted Dead or Alive: Manhunts from Geronimo to bin Laden” (I think) for a good account of the hunt for bin Laden from 1998-2001 that covers this.

So, both Carter and Clinton failed to respond to direct attacks upon American soil.

OhEssYouCowboys on August 29, 2012 at 12:21 PM

Yet they are not supposed to be investigated for their
long-standing financial ties to anti-American terrorrists.
I’m so looking forward to DNC openly declaring jihad on USA, during their upcoming jummah .

Not surprising in the least. Clintoon had several opportunities to get OBL but didn’t act on any of them, yet despite this WELL KNOWN FACT the lefty meme continues to be “9-11 happened on Bush’s watch.”

I love smacking down lefty morons when they throw that lame and stale meme out!

These claims are easy to validate. If anyone in the media wants to know whether our team took contact and there was a firefight or if someone else killed OBL – just check the DODICs. The military is fanatical about counting rounds in and out and they’re serialized down to the case. All a reporter would have to do is FOIA the ammo logs around that time. I sort of doubt the ammo logs are classified, but I guess that is a potential hurdle…

in 1999 — after the Khobar Towers attack in 1996 that killed 19 Air Force personnel

…but before anyone attributed the attack to Al Qaeda. In 1999, most folks who thought they knew who did it thought it was Shia, not Sunni, terrorists. Even now, the dispute continues, but pre-embassy-bombing (pre-1998), it was somewhat understandable not to take Al Qaeda terribly seriously.

“We have to capture bin Laden safe and sound so that he can stand trial and be sentenced legally,” Makowski quotes the officer as saying. “Any other solution is out of the question. CIA operates within the American legal order.”

The CIA operates outside of the “American legal order” which is why they aren’t allowed to operate in America. They operate outside of the range of the US COnstitution. That’s how they can do espionage and break the laws of other nations – which is their friggin job – and assassinate enemies of America abroad.

But … we all knew that Clinton was an idiot and had idiot’s working for him. This was just another of the rejected chances to stop bin laden while Clinton was more worried about getting some pooter in the Oval Office.

It is beyond amazing that Clinton can show his face in public, let alone be feted by leftists as a great figure … but then, they support a guy in the White House who simply hates America and holds us, our institutions and our culture in utter contempt and has done everything in his power (and much outside of the COnstitutional power of the Executive, for which he should have been impeached, tried and jailed long ago) to bring this nation to its knees – to leave nothing but a smoldering ash in his wake.

No society can sustain itself with such a sizeable percentage of the population that hates it and does everything they can to sabotage it. The bill is coming due, quickly.

According to CIA operative Billy Waugh in his book Hunting the Jackal, a shot was passed at UBL in the early 1990s in Sudan. So it’s certainly not outside the realm of possibility that numerous shots of various likelihood of success were passed up throughout the 90’s.

pre-embassy-bombing (pre-1998), it was somewhat understandable not to take Al Qaeda terribly seriously.

calbear on August 29, 2012 at 1:07 PM

Epic Fail on your part.

bin Laden had in fact already declared War against the US in 1996 when he issued his Fatwa against America. It specifically mentioned Bill Clinton by name, several times in fact, but never once mentioned Chimpy Bush.

And in 1998, Clinton’s Justice Department in fact indicted bin Laden.

And in that Federal Indictment, they explicitly stated as Fact that bin Laden and al Qaeda had entered into an understanding with Saddam Hussein and Iraq to work together.

Read the document yourself, from the Federation of American Scientists website. They’re hardly a Far Right group…

4. Al Qaeda also forged alliances with the National Islamic Front in the Sudan and with the government of Iran and its associated terrorist group Hezballah for the purpose of working together against their perceived common enemies in the West, particularly the United States.

In addition, al Qaeda reached an understanding with the government of Iraq that al Qaeda would not work against that government and that on particular projects, specifically including weapons development, al Qaeda would work cooperatively with the Government of Iraq.

Ed, let me point you back to the PFC Jessica Lynch rescue mission. The Bush administration was excoriated by the media of manipulating the story for political advantage. In the PFC Lynch raid–the same SEAL Team Six that hit UBL rolled up strong into An Nasiriyah hospital then was roundly criticized for “overkill”, even by Lynch herself, as showboating for advantage—-claims that are unfounded by any stretch. ST6 was thrown under the bus then, for their account of the raid, which happened in a very hot warzone, as well as the account given by SECDEF Rumsfeld.

Will the same media follow the same narrative when now…the very SEALs that closed the casket on UBL, provide a different account than the one that the administration is offering??

Special Ops had Bin Laden in their sites more than once at Tora Bora and could not get permission to fire.

Windsweeping on August 29, 2012 at 2:25 PM

I find that difficult to believe. Do you have any links to the information? I ask because it was my understanding that our troops had OBL and his butt buddies pinned down in Tora Bora to the point where the Northern Alliance (NA) were negotiating on behalf of OBL and Taliban to get the US Spec Ops to accept a cease fire/surrender of OBL and the Taliban. But the US Spec Ops personnel refused as they thought it was a ruse (which it was) to afford OBL and the Taliban time to get out from under their situation and get into Pakistan.

When the US Spec Ops refused their request the NA drew down on them and being outnumbered by the NA couldn’t do anything about it and thus allowed OBL and the Taliban to get to Pakistan. I’m certain the ROE’s were much different under Bush so soon after 9-11, Bush wanted OBL’s head on a platter so I’m certain all involved (Spec Ops, etc.) had the green light to take out OBL if the opportunity presented itself.

Bush was no limp wristed Carter or Clinton and no matter how the left tries to spin it Clinton blew many chances to get OBL prior to 9-11, therefore 9-11 lays squarely with Clinton, not Bush!

Does anyone think this may be why Sandy Berger was stealing those national security documents before the 9-11 commission could see them. Just a thought since no one has ever detailed what docs he was stealing.

CIA did have numerous opportunities to kill Bin Laden and passed because the Clinton administration ordered them not to carry them out (at least 10 times). This has been established.

However, we never supported the Taliban. We backed Massoud during the civil war, we even trained his commando unit on a US special operations base. We’ve backed Massoud since the 80s. It’s the reason why he was assassinated by AQ the day before 9/11 and the reason why his network flocked to us when we invaded. We had the network established. Any other claims are lies at best to cover someone’s ass, especially the Poles. They weren’t in the game in the 90s and we didn’t share any intelligence with them.

As for the book, I think the SEAL should have every right to write it. However, I don’t buy the account. It’s barely been a year and this guy released a book that contains classified info? No way he would get it published if it had an accurate account of the raid. SOCOM is more stringent than the Obama administration. If anything, he’s using the book as a way to get back at Obama by making SEAL Team 6, and JSOC, high profile political tools. Bush never did that with JSOC in Iraq. Most of their missions were classified, and they were involved with very high profile missions, such as killing Saddam’s sons, capturing Saddam himself, and knocking off Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Was Bin Laden armed? Who cares. Even if he was shot before the SEALs breached the room, they hit him (suppressed shots). Everyone on that mission had no intention of taking him alive. Not when there would be a media spectacle of his trial and no information obtained because we wouldn’t interrogate him. Was there a firefight? Probably not, if anything, each one of his guards were killed methodically.

Bottom line, this SEAL wants the Team to get credit for the mission, not Obama, and you got to respect that.

Special Ops had Bin Laden in their sites more than once at Tora Bora and could not get permission to fire.

Windsweeping on August 29, 2012 at 2:25 PM

That is not true, all I can say is that I was aboard the floating special forces ship formerly known as the USS Kitty Hawk working with a certain naval activities group, if any American units had had a positive ID on bin laden they would have blown him away in a heartbeat.

I find that difficult to believe. Do you have any links to the information? I ask because it was my understanding that our troops had OBL and his butt buddies pinned down in Tora Bora to the point where the Northern Alliance (NA) were negotiating on behalf of OBL and Taliban to get the US Spec Ops to accept a cease fire/surrender of OBL and the Taliban. But the US Spec Ops personnel refused as they thought it was a ruse (which it was) to afford OBL and the Taliban time to get out from under their situation and get into Pakistan.

When the US Spec Ops refused their request the NA drew down on them and being outnumbered by the NA couldn’t do anything about it and thus allowed OBL and the Taliban to get to Pakistan. I’m certain the ROE’s were much different under Bush so soon after 9-11, Bush wanted OBL’s head on a platter so I’m certain all involved (Spec Ops, etc.) had the green light to take out OBL if the opportunity presented itself.

Bush was no limp wristed Carter or Clinton and no matter how the left tries to spin it Clinton blew many chances to get OBL prior to 9-11, therefore 9-11 lays squarely with Clinton, not Bush!

Liberty or Death on August 29, 2012 at 3:20 PM

You’re both right. The Afghans were negotiating a ceasefire with the hostile, but Delta (the group on the ground) wanted to launch an assault on Bin Laden’s position without them. When that was rejected by the DOD, they asked for US backup (QRF Ranger unit), that also was rejected by the DOD. They were worried that an all out assault would turn into another Black Hawk Down.

That story has been backed up by the Delta Commander on the ground (in his book), and by CIA operatives.

If Massound had the means and opportunity, to kill OBL, with or without the CIA, he should have done it. It would have saved Massoud’s life.

sandspur on August 29, 2012 at 12:18 PM

He tried a couple times (ambush), but Bin Laden has always been reclusive. It took us years to track him down again, without US aid,Massoud couldn’t do much.

Bottom line, this SEAL wants the Team to get credit for the mission, not Obama, and you got to respect that.

Cr4sh Dummy on August 29, 2012 at 4:25 PM

Your account sounds much more plausible than windsweeping’s BS about Spec Ops not having a green light to kill OBL! Bush wanted OBL DEAD so I’m sure the ROE for anyone out there was kill or capture (preferably kill) OBL if you get the chance!

I’m more interested in discussing the more recent revelation about bin Laden already being dead when the SEALs burst into the room. How is it that after Obozo so “bravely” gave the order to execute the mission, and from a vantage point in the situation room to see the mission unfold, a completely false representation of the mission was released by the administration, only to be refuted by an eye witness?

Another pretty large reason why Clinton wouldn’t take out obl at that time was that obl was training the ground troops for Clinton’s war in the Balkans. The KLA was what we would call in today’s language “al qaeda in Kosovo”. We gave them guns. They would have killed every American in sight after Clinton killed their spiritual leader.

A few years ago I attended a conference where Billy Waugh (look him up) was the Keynote speaker. He recited how, during the Clinton administration, he was in the middle east and came across bin Laden. Got right close to him. He called it in to his supervisors and asked for a greenlight to cap him; they put him on hold while they called Clinton. Clinton said no. He was afraid of how it would poll, and that they might get mad at him in the Middle East.